The leaders of Russia and Ukraine, and of the United States and Iran and of every other country in the Middle East, and of the dozens of African countries currently engaged in armed conflict, are all men. Not a woman among them, nor among most of their fighting forces. Why?
In the early days of the most recent incarnation of the women’s movement – in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s – the question of whether women lead differently from men often came up. The conclusion generally was yes: women tend to be somewhat less aggressive and more collaborative, including in the workplace. This was in keeping with what we know about nearly all great apes – of which humans are one – which similarly have males more prone to fight, especially physically, than females.
The issue of women and power is less fraught now than it was when the women’s movement was in its heyday – or maybe it just surfaces less. Why would this be? Have the questions been satisfactorily answered? Of course not. Have women reached equity with men? Of course not. But there are reasons why the issue of women and power has been pushed to the back burner. Three of the most important:
First, the number of democracies has decreased, and the number of autocracies has increased. This matters because as Hillary Clinton pointed out in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, a “crucial element at the heart of the authoritarian wave” is the persecution of at least the diminishment of women.* This has implications not just for women on the lower rungs of the ladder but for those higher up. Even in recent years, “female leaders and activists have faced intimidation, treason charges, prison, and exile.”
Second, while in the private sector has been progress – there are more women chief executive officers and board members now than fifty years ago – progress has been so slow that the issue of gender and power has come over time to feel less not more pressing. This year only 11 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women – which is, if you can believe it, the highest number ever. Norway is reputed to have the highest number of female CEOs anywhere in the world, but even this number is under 14 percent. It’s hard to remain indefinitely excited about a problem that is chronic.
Third, is the lack of a sufficient sample size. In every sector the number of women leaders has been so low that it’s difficult if not impossible to reach reliable conclusions. Do I have to hear yet again that in 1982 Margaret Thatcher took military action when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands? Do I have to point out yet again that the United States and China, France, Russia and Nigeria have never had a female leader? Do I have to mention that neither Meta nor Nvidia, neither Amazon nor Alphabet, have ever had a female leader?
What’s remarkable is not, then, that we don’t have all the answers. What’s remarkable is that we still have so little information because women with power remain still so rare – which is perhaps why war. Wars.
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*“Women’s Rights are Democratic Rights” in Foreign Affairs, March/April 2026.